Knowledge Base Timeframe

How long will this Knowledgebase be in beta?

There are three parts to this beta, the software, the community of contributors, and utility for the target audiences. They all have different timelines.

Software

Currently we’re on a montly rollout of new features, and the only developer, Ryan Nguyen, only works on the KB part time. Given the number of features we imagine, it will probably be 6-10 months more before most of them are done. It’s already usable, although it’s focused on getting regular contributors instead of people looking for answers.

See Trac and login and look at the Forum to see some of the features being talked about.

Community of Contributors

Given the constantly changing nature of technology, this knowledgebase can’t become, or continue to be useful, without constant input and updating. We need a community of contributors to the Knowledgebase who treat it as a daily resource that they add to and check. This is the hardest and most crucial part of this experiment. How long this will take is anyone’s guess.

Target Audiences

We’re not sure what “critical mass” means in a knowledgebase. And it depends on the target audience.

• Help Desks – if the staff of help desks across campus start contributing any question they answer more than a few times, the logic is that they’ll come back and use the Knowledgebase because they know at least their answers are in it.
• Technical Groups – UCLA technical groups, such as Campus Web Publishers, Course Management Consortium and UCLA Programmers Exchange are the second target audience. If these groups use the Knowledgebase to share hints, tricks and tutorials as they work on their projects, there will be benefits for each other as well as for the Help Desks.
• Faculty and Staff – is the third target audience and that is probably a year out. We would first need categorization or a structure in the Knowledgebase, and an effort to make sure there are no large gaps in information. Searching will have to be improved as well.